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there are potentiallhyy an infinite number of motor solutions for acting on an object

motor programs

stored routines that specify certain motor parameters of an action (the relative timing of strokes)

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somatosensation

a cluster of perceptual processes that relate to the skin and body, and include touch, pain, thermal sensation and limb position

proprioception

knowledge of the position of the limbs in space

sensory-motor transformation

linking together of perceptual knowledge of object in space and knowledge of the position of one's body to enable objects to be acted on

hommunculus problem

the problem of explaining volitional acts without assuming a cognitive process that is itself volitional ("a man within a man")

primary motor cortex

responsible for execution of voluntary movements of the body

hemiplegia

damage to one side of the primary motor cortex results in a failure to voluntarily move the other side of the body

frontal eye fields

responsible for voluntary movement of the eyes

premotor cortex

the lateral area is important for linking action with objects in the environment; the medial area is known as the supplementary motor area and deals with well-learned actions and action sequences

supplementary motor area (SMA)

deals with well-learned actions, particularly action sequences that do not place strong demands on monitoring the environment

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perseveration

repeating an action that has already been performed and is no longer relevant

utilization behavior

impulsively acting on irrelevant objects in the environment

schema

an organized set of stored information (familiar action routines)

contention scheduling

the mechanism that selects one particular schema to be enacted from a host of competing schemas

frontal apraxia

failure in tasks of routine activity that involve setting up and maintaining different subgoals, but with no basic deficits in object recognition or gesturing the use of isolated objects (aka action disorganization syndrome)

forward model

a representation of the motor command (so-called "efference copy") is used to predict the sensory consequences of an action

imitation

the ability to reproduce the behavior of another through observation

mirror neuron

a neuron that responds to goal-directed actions performed by oneself or by others

optic ataxia

a symptom arising form damage to teh occipito-parietal junction. patients are not able to to accurately reach towards objects under visual guidance

phantom limb

the feeling that an amputated limb is still present

tool

an object that affords certain actions for specific goals

ideomoter apraxia

an inability to produce appropriate gestures given an object, word or command

affordances

structural properties of objects imply certain usages

Parkinson's disease

a disease associated with the basal ganglia and characterized by a lack of self-initiated movement

hypokinetic

a reduction in movement

hyperkinetic

a genetic disorder affecting the basal ganglia and associated with excessive movement

Huntington's disease

a genetic disorder affecting the basal ganglia and associated with excessive movement

Tourette's syndrome

a neuropsychiatric disorder with an onset in childhood characterized by the presence of of motor and/or vocal tics